On June 2003, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC) faced a frightening crisis when an employee was diagnosed with Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS). In this article, the author looks back and identifies four factors that enabled the university to navigate this crisis. These factors were: (1) leadership at every level; (2) the presence of some of the world's top experts on epidemiology and infectious disease; (3) information technology; and (4) an outstanding health care system that had a crisis plan for handling outbreaks of infectious disease. Until the emergency passed, employees of UNC went to extraordinary lengths to avert disaster in a campus-wide display of leadership that can serve as a model for other institutions.